The words are "representatives and direct taxes, shall be
apportioned among the several states, which may be included
in this union, according to their respective numbers,
which shall be determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons, including those bound to service
for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three
fifths of all other persons."--What a strange and unnecessary
accumulation of words are here used to conceal
from the public eye, what might have been expressed in
the following concise manner. Representatives are to be
proportioned among the states respectively, according to
the number of freemen and slaves inhabiting them, counting
five slaves for three free men.

"In a free state," says the celebrated Montesquieu,
"every man, who is supposed to be a free agent, ought to
be concerned in his own government. therefore the legislature
should reside in the whole body of the people, or
their representatives." But it has never been alledged that
those who are not free agents, can, upon any rational principle,
have any thing to do in government, either by themselves
or others. If they have no share in government, why
is the number of members in the assembly, to be increased
on their account? Is it because in some of the states, a considerable
part of the property of the inhabitants consists in
a number of their fellow men, who are held in bondage,
in defiance of every idea of benevolence, justice, and religion,
and contrary to all the principles of liberty, which
have been publickly avowed in the late glorious revolution?
If this be a just ground for representation, the horses
in some of the states, and the oxen in others, ought to be
represented--for a great share of property in some of
them, consists in these animals; and they have as much
controul over their own actions, as these poor unhappy
creatures, who are intended to be described in the above
recited clause, by the words, "all other persons." By this
mode of apportionment, the representatives of the different
parts of the union, will be extremely unequal; in some
of the southern states, the slaves are nearly equal in number
to the free men; and for all these slaves, they will be
entitled to a proportionate share in the legislature--this
will give them an unreasonable weight in the government,
which can derive no additional strength, protection, nor
defence from the slaves, but the contrary. Why then
should they be represented? What adds to the evil is, that
these states are to be permitted to continue the inhuman
traffic of importing slaves, until the year 1808--and for
every cargo of these unhappy people, which unfeeling,
unprincipled, barbarous, and avaricious wretches, may
tear from their country, friends and tender connections,
and bring into those states, they are to be rewarded by
having an increase of members in the general assembly.